Emphasis on Teamwork
by Silberias
Summary: Yamato has been noticing some things. His teammates, one by one, are starting to get along. Perhaps a little too well.


Just something that came into my mind and died there. Some of the more adorable fics I've ever read are ones where Team Seven is close. Too close. Yeah...

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When Kakashi was away, Yamato was the team captain, and that suited him. If his three subordinates were a little odd around one another, he didn't take too much notice—and by odd you must understand he was noticing a certain brand of closeness which he hadn't seen except between elderly couples. He often supposed it was because of Kakashi's emphasis on teamwork. When Yamato captained for the team, they talked their strategies out—even Sai and Sakura were civil to one another. He had the impression that when he was out of sight, they barely spoke.

And he would have been right.

When Yamato was away, and Kakashi resumed his role as captain, the four person team rarely spoke. After six years, even Sai had been integrated into their group—when they were a team, they were one entity with one mind. Strategies didn't need to be discussed in the field because they instinctually moved in and around one another like a person threads their fingers together. There was no reason to verify or question the motives of a teammate—left and right hands don't question one another either. They move independently of one another, but are directed by the same brain.

Yamato, on the outside of this, often wondered how they'd _attained_ that four-way brain.

He would have been surprised.

Some teams ate together. Constantly. Team Asuma was one such team—when Asuma had been alive, they trained together, ate together, spent free time together, and the three kids Asuma had trained were all close because of clan ties—their fathers were joined at the hip, and their kids had grown up the same. But their teamwork wasn't as flawless as Team Kakashi's was. Team Kurenai was born out of three clan outcasts being squashed together, with Kiba and Shino defensively curling around Hinata, training with her and hanging out with her constantly. The last part was easy when they lived in the extra rooms of Kurenai's home—their teamleader allowing them to live there to put some life into the home she was to have shared with Asuma. But their teamwork wasn't as freakishly interwoven as Team Kakashi's was. As for Team Gai, they had been torn apart by injuries and promotions so many times that they functioned best as individual units within a team—they could read one another's minds well enough, could predict strategic actions better than most, and they knew when one of their teammates was in danger. But they couldn't zero in on a problem like Team Kakashi could.

When Kakashi started going out with Sakura, years ago now, a marked change in team dynamics was noticed by those who examined the team's mission reports—they weren't reported as arguing with one another about strategy anymore. Not Sai, nor Naruto, nor Yamato reported arguments between the two of them, and there was relief in each teammembers' report about this—Sakura was certainly one of the more violent kunoichi in the village, second only to the Hokage in some opinions.

And then, mysteriously, the two of them stopped having disagreements with Naruto. Completely. One mission they argued, and then the next—and all those after it—they didn't. Team Kakashi mission reports began to omit the words such as "discussed" and "verified," when mentioning the three original members of Team Seven. Because they no longer discussed mission objectives, and they no longer verified action plans between the three of them. There was apparently no need.

Even more mystifying, to Yamato at least, was Sai's sudden inclusion in this silence. It isn't until all four of Yamato's teammates are late—hours late—for a team breakfast that he finds out the reason behind the silence and the four-way brain that they have. At Sai's tiny apartment—a box whose walls were covered in paintings—there was no chakra signature, and the bed which could be seen from the window was unoccupied. At Naruto's place there was an eerie stillness, and while the bedclothes were rumpled, Naruto's little twin size was not in use by the Kyuubi container. It was when Kakashi was not to be found at his apartment _or_ the memorial stone that Yamato started to worry. It was Team Kakashi's day off, so they weren't on a mission or at the Hokage Tower, and they'd all been late for a get-together which Sakura had planned weeks ago.

Gulping visibly, Yamato made his way to the part of town where Sakura lived, hoping against hope that his last teammate would be there.

Oh she was—and so were the three men Yamato had searched the village for that morning. Sakura's bed wasn't _much_ bigger than Naruto's, a full size. Not quite a queen size, but certainly big enough. On that bed which was just big enough, four people were contorted and wrapped around one another. Kakashi was curled up between Sakura and the wall which the bed was shoved up next to, and, with the back of his head pressed up against Sakura's chest, was a deeply sleeping Naruto. Sai was sleeping on his back towards the edge of the bed, with half of Naruto's limbs sprawled over him.

Yamato was too shocked at this revelation that he didn't even register that the four shinobi were clothed for bed—Sai was wearing some sort of weird ANBU-issue pair of shorts, Naruto was wearing whatever that _thing_ was with the hat, Sakura was in a tank-top and sweatpants, and Kakashi—obviously having just returned from a mission before coming to Sakura's and collapsing—was still in even his Jounin vest.

And it wasn't until Sakura twitched awake—likely having sensed Yamato's wildly flaring chakra output—and beckoned him inside that Yamato understood what had happened to his team. Somehow after Sakura and Kakashi had become involved, Naruto had been brought into the inner circle that was the original Team Seven, and because Yamato had served with them for less time than Sai, Sai had been inducted sooner. As the four shifted around to make room for one more, Yamato finally understood where all the power of Team Kakashi came from—it came from teamwork, and family.

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Review?


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